ABSTRACT
It would be presumptuous to seek comprehensively to survey or represent contemporary varieties of postmodernist thought (which may now be named post-postmodernist thought, in the sense that epigones are always already “post” – following, subsequent to – the originating voices). To survey would be to invite travesty, since the deconstructive phase of postmodernism sought to dismantle traditional Western pretensions to absolute truth (logocentrism, triumphalism), complete coverage (totalism),
impartial bird’s-eye views (reductionism), and subsuming master narratives of one or another persuasion or authorization (monotheism and colonialism). As Linda Hutcheon recognizes, it is typical of postmodernist reflection to be “resolutely self-undermining” (1989:1).
